red thirst Page 8

  "We had best bury your companions," said Felix to fill the silence.

  "Why so glum, friend Felix? Is it not a lovely night?" asked Jules Gascoigne sardonically, blowing on his hands to warm them against the bitter cold. Felix pulled his spare cloak up over his knees and extended his hands towards the small fire Zauberlich had lit with a word of power. He looked over at the Bretonnian, his face turned into a daemonic mask by the underlight.

  "These mountains are chill and daunting," Felix replied. "Who knows what perils they hide?"

  "Who indeed? We are close to the Darklands. Some say that is the very spawning ground of orcs and all other greenskin devils. Also, I have heard tales that these mountains are haunted."

  Felix gestured towards the fire. "Do you think we should have lit this?" From nearby came Gotrek's reassuring snores and the regular rhythmic breathing of the others.

  Jules chuckled. "It is a choice between evils, no? I have seen men freeze to death on nights like this. If anything attacks us, it is best that we have light to see by. The greenskins may be able to spot a man in the dark but we cannot, eh? No, I do not think the fire makes much difference. However I do not think this why you are sad."

  He looked at Felix expectantly. Without really knowing why, Felix told the whole sorry tale of how he and Gotrek had joined the von Diehl expedition to the Border Princes. Von Diehl and his retainers had sought peace in a new land and found only terrible death. He told of his meeting with his beloved Kirsten. The Bretonnian listened sympathetically. When Felix finished telling of Kirsten's death, Jules shook his head.

  "Ah, it is a sorry world we live in, is it not?"

  "It is indeed."

  "Do not dwell on the past, my friend. It cannot be altered. In time all wounds heal."

  "It doesn't seem that way to me."

  They fell into silence. Felix looked over at the sleeping dwarf. Gotrek sat like a gargoyle, immobile, eyes shut but axe in hand. Felix wondered how the dwarf would take the scout's advice. Gotrek, like all dwarfs, constantly brooded on the lessons of the past. His sense of history drove him inexorably towards his future. He claimed that men had imperfect memories, that dwarfs' were better.

  Is that why he seeks his doom, Felix wondered? Does his shame burn in him as strong now as at the moment he committed whatever crime he seeks to atone for? Felix pondered what it must be like to live with the past intruding so strongly into the present that it could never be forgotten. I would go mad, he thought.

  He inspected his own grief and tried to recall it new-minted. It seemed that it had diminished by a particle, had been eroded by time and would continue to be so. He felt no better, knowing that he was doomed to forget, to have his memories become pale shadows. Perhaps the dwarfish way was better, he thought. Even the time he had spent with Kirsten seemed paler, more colourless.

  During his watch Felix saw a greenish witchlight far upslope on the mountain. As he stared he felt a sense of dread. The light drifted about as if seeking something. In its midst was a vaguely human form. Felix had heard tales of the daemons haunting these mountains. He looked over at Gotrek, wondering whether he should wake him.

  The light vanished. Felix watched for a long time but he saw no further sign. Perhaps it had been an after-image of the fire or a trick of the light and a tired mind. Somehow he doubted it.

  In the morning he dismissed his suspicions. The party followed the road round the shoulder of the mountain and suddenly a new land lay spread out before them under the grey, overcast sky.

  They looked down into a long valley nestled in a basin between eight mountains. The peaks rose like the talons of a giant claw. In their palm lay a city.

  Huge walls blocked the valley's entrance, built from blocks of stone taller than a man. Within the walls, next to a silver lake, sat a great keep. A town nestled beneath it. Long roads ran from the fortress to lesser towers at the base of each mountain. Drystone dykes criss-crossed the valley, creating a patchwork of overgrown fields.

  Gotrek nudged Felix in the ribs and pointed towards the peaks.

  "Behold," he said, a hint of wonder in voice. "Carag Zilfin, Carag Yar, Carag Mhonar and the Silverhorn."

  "Those are the eastern mountains," said Aldred. "Carag Lhune, Carag Rhyn, Carag Nar and the White Lady guard the western approach."

  Gotrek looked at the Sigmarian respectfully. "You speak truthfully, Templar. Long have these mountains haunted my dreams. Long have I wished to stand in their shadow."

  Felix looked down on the city. There was a sense of enduring strength about the place. Carag Eight Peaks had been built from the bones of mountains to endure till the end of the world.

  "It is beautiful," he said.

  Gotrek looked at him with fierce pride. "In ancient times, this city was known as the Queen of the Silver Depths. It was the fairest of our realms and we grieved its fall most sorely."

  Jules stared down at the massive walls. "How could it have fallen? All the armies of all the kings of men could be stood off in these mountains. Those fields could feed the population of Quenelles."

  Gotrek shook his head and stared down into the city as intensely as if he were staring back into elder days.

  "In pride we built Eight Peaks, at the zenith of our ancient power. It was a wonder to the world; more beautiful than Everpeak, open to the sky. A sign of our wealth and power, strong beyond the measure of dwarfs or elves or men. We thought it would never fall and the mines it guarded would be ours forever."

  The Trollslayer spoke with a bitter, compelling passion that Felix had never heard in his voice before.

  "What fools we were," Gotrek said. "What fools we were. In pride we built Eight Peaks, sure of our mastery of stone and the dark beneath the world. Yet even as we built the city the seeds of its doom were planted."

  "What happened?" asked Felix.

  "Our quarrel with the elves began; we scourged them from the forests and drove them from the lands. After that who were we to trade with? Commerce between our races had been the source of much wealth, tainted though it was. Worse, the cost in lives was more grievous than the cost to our merchants. The finest warriors of three generations fell in that bitter struggle."

  "Still, your folk now controlled all the land between the World's Edge mountains and the Great Sea," said Zauberlich with a pedant's smugness. "So claims Ipsen in his book Wars of the Ancients."

  The acid of Gotrek's laughter could have corroded steel. "Did we? I doubt it. While we had warred with our faithless allies the dark gathered its strength. We were weary of war when the black mountains belched forth their clouds of ash. The sky was overcast and the sun hid its face. Our crops died and our cattle sickened. Our people had returned to the safety of their cities; and from the very heart of our realm, from the place we imagined ourselves strongest, our foes burst forth."

  He stopped speaking and in the silence Felix imagined he heard the caw of some distant bird.

  "From tunnels far below any we had ever dug our enemies struck into the core of our fortresses. Through mines that had been the source of our wealth poured armies of goblins and rat-like Skaven and things far, far worse."

  "What did your people do?" asked Felix.

  Gotrek spread his arms wide and looked into their faces. "What could we do? We took up our weapons and went again to war. And a terrible war it was. Our battles with the elves had taken place under the sky, through field and forest. The new war was fought in cramped spaces in the long dark, with dreadful weapons and a ferocity beyond your imagining. Shafts were collapsed, corridors scoured with firethrowers, pits flooded. Our foes responded with poison gas and vile sorcery and the summoning of daemons. Beneath where we now stand we fought with every resource we could muster, with all our weapons and all the courage desperation brings. We fought and we lost. Step by step we were driven from our homes."

  Felix looked down at the placid city. It seemed impossible that what Gotrek described could ever have happened and yet there was something in the Trollslayer's v
oice that compelled belief. Felix imagined the desperate struggle of those long-ago dwarfs, their fear and bewilderment as they were pushed from the place they had believed was theirs. He pictured them fighting their doomed struggle with more-than-human tenacity.

  "In the end it became obvious that we could not hold the city so the tombs of our kings and the treasure-vaults were sealed and hidden by cunning devices. We abandoned this place to our foes."

  Gotrek glared at them. "Since then we have not been so foolish as to believe any place is secure from the dark."

  All through the long day, as they approached the wall, Felix realized how much the old structures had suffered. What, from a distance, gave the impression of ageless strength and sureness became, on closer inspection, just as ruined as the road upon which they travelled.

  The curtain wall blocking the road into the valley was four times as tall as a man and passed between steep, sheer cliffs. Signs of neglect were obvious. Moss grew between the cracks of the great stone blocks. The stones were pitted by rain channels and mottled with yellow lichen. Some were blackened as if by fire. A huge section of the wall had tumbled away.

  His companions were silent. The desolation cast a pall over the party. Felix felt depressed and on edge. It was as if the spirits of antiquity watched over them, brooding over the tumbled remains of ancient grandeur. Felix's hand never strayed far from the hilt of his sword.

  The cracked valves of the ancient gate had been wedged open. Someone had made a half-hearted attempt to clear the sign of the hammer and crown over eight peaks carved into the stone. Already the lichen was growing back into place.

  "Someone has been here recently," said Jules, studying the gates closely.

  "I can see how you earned your reputation as a scout," said Gotrek sarcastically.

  "Stay where you are," boomed out an unfamiliar voice. "Unless you want to be filled with crossbow bolts."

  Felix looked up at the parapet. He saw the helmeted heads of a dozen dwarfs looking down through the battlements. Each pointed a loaded crossbow at them.

  "Welcome to Carag Eight Peaks," said their greybearded leader. "I hope you have good reason for trespassing on the domain of Prince Belegar."

  Under grey-white clouds they marched through the city. It was a scene from after the day of judgement when the forces of Chaos returned to claim the world. Houses had tumbled and fallen into the streets. A fusty rotten smell came from many of the buildings. Evil-looking ravens cawed from the remains of old chimneys. Clouds of the gaunt, black birds soared above them.

  The score of dwarfish warriors accompanying them were constantly on the alert. They scanned the doorways as if expecting ambush. Their crossbows were loaded and ready. They gave the impression of being in the middle of a battlefield.

  Once they halted. The leader gestured for silence. Everyone stood listening. Felix thought he heard a scuttling sound but wasn't sure. He strained his eyes against the early evening gloom but could see no sign of trouble. The company leader gestured.

  Two armoured dwarfs moved cautiously towards the corner and glanced around. The rest formed into a square. After a long tense moment the scouts gave the sign for all clear.

  The quiet was broken by Gotrek's laughter. "Scared of a few gobbos?" he asked.

  The leader glared at him. "There are worse things than goblins abroad on nights like this. Be assured of it." he said.

  Gotrek ran his thumb down the blade of his axe, drawing blood. "Bring them on," he roared. "Bring them on!"

  His shout echoed through the ruins and was swallowed by ominous silence. After that even Gotrek was quiet.

  The city was larger than Felix had imagined; perhaps the size of Altdorf, greatest city of the Empire. Most of it was ruined, devastated by ancient wars.

  "Surely your own people did not cause all this damage. Some of it seems quite recent," Felix said.

  "Gobbos," Gotrek replied. "It is the curse of their kind that when they have no-one else to fight they fight amongst themselves. Doubtless after the city fell it was divided up among various warlords. Sure as elvish treachery, they'd fall out over the division of spoils.

  "In addition there have been many attempts to recapture the city by my kin and men from the Border Princes. There's still a motherlode of silver down there."

  He spat. "No attempt to hold the city has ever lasted. The dark has lain here. Where once it has been can never again be truly free of it."

  They entered an area where the buildings had been partially repaired and which now seemed abandoned again. An attempt to re-colonize the city had failed, defeated by the sheer immensity of the ruins. Under the walls of the great keep the dwarfs seemed more relaxed. Their leader grumbled the occasional order to keep alert.

  "Remember Lars," he said. "He and his men were killed while on the path to the great gate."

  The dwarfs immediately reverted to their stern watchfulness.

  Felix kept his hand near his sword.

  "This is not a healthy place," whispered Jules Gascoigne.

  As soon as they were through it, the keep's great gate closed with a crash like the fall of towers.

  The hall was bleak, its walls covered by threadbare tapestries. It was lit by strange glowing gems that hung from a chandelier in the ceiling. On a throne of carved ivory inlaid with gold sat an aged dwarf, flanked by lines of mailed, blue-tunicked warriors. He gazed down with rheumy eyes, his glance flickering from the Trollslayer to the humans. Beside the ancient, a purple-robed female dwarf watched the whole proceeding with a strange, serene intensity. From a chain around her neck dangled an iron-bound book.

  Felix thought he detected strain in the faces of the Imperial dwarfs. Perhaps dwelling in the haunted and run-down city had sapped their morale. Or perhaps it was something more; they seemed constantly to look over their shoulders. They started at the slightest noise.

  "State your business, strangers," said the aged dwarf in a deep, proud, brittle voice. "Why have you come here?"

  Gotrek glared back at him loutishly. "I am Gotrek Gurnisson, once of Everpeak. I have come to hunt troll in the dark beneath the world. The manling Felix Jaegar is my blood-brother, a poet and rememberer. Do you seek to deny me my right?"

  As he said the final sentence Gotrek hefted his axe. The dwarfish soldiers raised their hammers.

  The ancient laughed. "No, Gotrek Gurnisson, I do not. Your path is an honourable one and I see no reason to stand in it. Although your choice of brethren is an ill one."

  The dwarfish soldiers began to mutter amongst themselves. Felix felt baffled. It seemed as if Gotrek had broken some incomprehensible taboo.

  "There is precedent," said the robed dwarfess. The sounds of consternation stopped. Felix expected her to speak further, to expand on what she had said but she did not. It seemed enough to the dwarfs that she had spoken.

  "You both may pass, Gotrek, son of Gurni. Be careful of the gate you choose into the dark and beware lest your courage fail you." His voice held no hint of concern, only bitterness and secret shame.

  Gotrek nodded curtly to the dwarf lord and withdrew to the back of the hall. Felix gave his best court bow, then followed the Trollslayer.

  "State your business, strangers," said the ruler. Aldred went down on one knee before the throne and the others followed suit.

  "I have come on a matter concerning my faith and an ancient pledge of aid between your folk and mine. My tale is a complex one and may take some time to tell."

  The dwarf laughed nastily. Once again Felix sensed some secret knowledge that ate at the aged dwarf-lord. "Speak on. We are rich in no other commodity but time. We can spend it freely."

  "Thank you. Am I correct in assuming that you are the same Prince Belegar who led the expedition to reclaim this city from the greenskins twenty years ago?"

  Belegar nodded. "You are correct."

  "Your guide was a dwarfish prospector called Faragrim, who found many secret ways back into the city below the Eight Peaks."

  Once aga
in the old dwarf nodded. Felix and Gotrek exchanged looks. It had been Faragrim who had told Gotrek about the troll-guarded treasure beneath the mountains.

  "Your expedition was accompanied by a young knight of my order, a companion of Faragrim in his adventuring days. His name was Raphael."

  "He was a true man and a foe of our enemies," said Belegar. "He went with Faragrim on his last expedition into the depths and never returned. When Faragrim refused to seek him I dispatched runners but they could not find his body."

  "It is good to know you honoured him although I am downcast to learn that the blade which he bore was lost. It was a weapon of power and of great importance to my order."

  "You are not the first who has come here to retrieve it," said the dwarf woman.

  Aldred smiled. "Nevertheless I have sworn a vow to return the sword, Karaghul, to the chapter house of my order. I have cause to believe I will succeed." Belegar raised an eyebrow.

  "Before setting out on my quest I fasted for two weeks and scourged my body with purgatives and the lash. On Sigmarzeit last I was favoured with a vision. My Lord appeared before me. He said he looked with favour on my mission and that the time was near for the enchanted blade to be drawn again."

  "Further - he told me that I would be aided by one of our ancient brethren. I interpret this as meaning a dwarf, for so are your people always referred to in the Unfinished Book."

  "I beseech you, noble Belegar, do not oppose my mission. My brother Raphael honoured the ancient vow of our faith, never to refuse aid to a dwarf, when he fell. It would be a mark of respect to allow me to recover his blade."

  "Well spoken, man," said Belegar. Felix could see he was moved, as dwarfs invariably were by talk of honour and ancient oaths. Still there was a hint of bright malice in Belegar's gaze when he spoke. "I grant your petition. May you have more luck than your predecessors."

  Aldred rose and bowed. "Could you provide us with a guide?"

  Once again Belegar laughed and there was a strange, wild quality to his mirth. He cackled nastily. "I am sure Gotrek Gurnisson would be prepared to aid a quest so similar to his own."